About Kennie Ting

I am a wandering cityophile and pattern-finder who is pathologically incapable of staying in one place for any long period of time. When I do, I see the place from different perspectives, obsessive-compulsively.

5 Essential Sights for the Grand Tourist – George Town, Penang

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Kennie Ting

View of the Malacca Straits from the Grounds of the E & O Hotel in Penang.

George Town, Penang is a UNESCO World Heritage site, due to its being an exemplary multi-cultural trading town with many layers of history. In particular, emphasis was placed on it being a showcase of living heritage, embodied not just in the continued use of many heritage buildings, but also in the observance of a variety of traditional customs practiced by the various ethnicities that share the city. Here are 5 essential sights in this city of heritage:

✑ A walk down Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling – Penang’s “Street of Harmony” – and a visit to the stunning Khoo Kongsi Temple Complex.

✑ A leisurely saunter down Armenian Street for the beautifully restored colonial-era shophouses and the graffiti/public art.

✑ A sprightly jaunt around the Padang to the northern edge of Beach Street, for the air of colonial authenticity, and for the monumental civic and commercial architecture. Look out for Town Hall and City Hall, and the Standard Chartered Bank Building.

✑ The Pinang Peranakan Mansion, for the gloriously over-the-top interiors and the stories of matriarchs and their rebellious progeny. The Cheong Fatt Sze, or Blue Mansion, is equally stunning on the outside but far less well furnished inside.

✑ The Clan Jetties, particularly the Chew Clan Jetty, for its sheer size and for the gorgeous view at the end of the “boardwalk.”

Food is so good in Penang that even Singaporeans down South acknowledge this readily. Brave the many outdoor hawker centres for the most authentic culinary experience and the widest range of local dishes (such as Penang Char Kway Teow, Penang Laksa, Roti Canai, Indian rojak, and so on.)

And of course, stay at the magnificent Eastern & Oriental Hotel (the E & O to locals) for the stunning view of the Malacca Straits from the longest seafront promenade anywhere in the city.

Town Hall, at the Padang.

Traditional shophouses along Armenian Street.

Interior of the Khoo Kongsi Temple.

Detail, Pinang Peranakan Mansion.

The edge of the Chew Clan Jetty.

Jalan Green Hall – an image which demonstrates Georgetown’s multi-cultural nature.

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Waterstones in London. Find it also on http://www.amazon.co.uk andhttp://www.bookdepository.com]

5 Essential Sights for the Grand Tourist – Rangoon (Yangon)

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Lone monk amidst the visiting worshippers, Shwedagon Pagoda.

Over the course of the next 12 weeks, I’ll be doing a series of posts featuring 5 Essential Sights for the Grand Tourist’s Itinerary in each of the cities covered in the Grand Tour. I begin, this week, with the city of Rangoon – today’s Yangon.

✑ Stroll along Strand Road and Pansoedan Road, for a glimpse of the greatness of the British Raj. Stand and gape at the monumental civic, cultural and commercial colonial-era buildings that still stand, in particular, the Edwardian-era High Court Building, and the Accountant-General’s Office.

✑ Wander West of Sule Pagoda, which contains Chinatown, Little India and the Arab/Persian/Jewish Quarter. Here’s where you’ll find the greatest concentration of world religions anywhere in Southeast Asia.

✑ Explore the languid, laidback tree-lined sidewalks of the suburb of Ahlone, a prestigious district of colonial villas, now housing foreign Missions and Embassies. Pop into the Governors House boutique hotel for a drink at the bar.

✑ Take the wonderfully rickety three-hour journey on the Circular Train to the rural outskirts of Yangon and back. Worth the $1 ticket price just to see the motley crew of locals en route. Be prepared to be crushed in your seat by heaving crowds though. Bring your passport.

✑ Pay a visit to the surreal and breathtaking apparition that is Shwedagon Pagoda. Enough said.

Yangon is breathtaking in its vibrancy and timelessness. Visit it before sweeping political and economic change forces the city to slough its magnificent older skin.

The Accountant General’s Office, at the junction of Strand and Pansoedan Roads.

Interior of the Yangon Circular Train, during a rare moment of silence.

The Hong Kong Skyline: Then and Now

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Kennie Ting

The Hong Kong skyline in the 1890s/1900s.

Hong Kong is the sister city to Singapore, and like its sibling, it presents a very stark illustration of how trade and commerce shapes a city.

Hong Kong’s skyline is one of the most iconic skylines in the world – this was true of the city in the early 1900s, as it is today. The following two shots provide a sense of how this skyline has changed, but still remains memorable.

What unfortunately has faded away are those sweeping vistas of Chinese junks sailing past Hong Kong Harbour – the very essence of Hong Kong itself. Today, only one junk plies these waters, and even then, it is a pale shadow of those that came before it.

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore, Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. As of mid-June, it will also be available at Waterstones and Blackwells in London, on http://www.amazon.co.uk and http://www.bookdepository.com]

An iconic junk in Hong Kong Harbour, early 1900s.

The Hong Kong skyline today, and the lone junk still plying the waters of the harbour (at bottom left).

Imperial Siam and the City of Bangkok

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Kennie Ting

The Royal Barge on the Chao Phraya River

Bangkok, the royal capital of the Kingdom of Siam (today’s Thailand), is important in the history of South East Asia because it never succumbed to any European colonial power. In other words, there is no colonial history of the city — even though it came very close to having one.

Just over a century ago, in 1893, French warships sailed up the Maenam Chao Phraya or the River of Kings intent on forcibly taking this ancient empire as the French equivalent of British India. It took some deft foreign policy and significant territorial concessions on the part of the then Siamese monarch, King Chulalongkorn, also known as Rama V, of the still ruling Chakri Dynasty, for Bangkok to avoid becoming the capital of French Indochina.

French Warships on the Maenam Chao Phraya, from an 1893 newspaper.

The king, himself, we know well. Most latter-day grand tourists remember him from when he was a little boy getting to know his very persistent governess, Anna Leonowens, in the 1954 Hollywood movie musical, The King and I. Educated in the western tradition, he proved to be a vanguard, modernising his kingdom and playing British insecurities against French egocentrism so shrewdly that he managed to secure from both Great Powers a promise to ensure the independence and neutrality of his Kingdom.

Photograph of King Chulalongkorn from an early 1900s American newspaper.

Having no colonial history, however, doesn’t mean Siam has no relation whatsoever to colonialism in South East Asia. Make no mistake about it: while Thailand was never a colony, Siam was a colonising power, exerting its influence over Laos and Cambodia (which it conceded to French Indochina), and the primarily Malay Muslim region along the Kra Isthmus, of which the provinces of Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Perak were conceded to British Malaya. A trip to Laos and Cambodia will reveal just how pervasive the Thai cultural influence still is in these countries.

At the same time, Siam, being independent of any colonial empire, paid host to Europeans from almost every creed and language. The Portuguese and Dutch were the first to arrive in the 1500s and stayed for more than 400 years. Then there were the French in the 1600s, the Danish in the 1700s, the British in the 1800s, and finally the Americans, with their investment dollars, after World War II. At that time, the mighty Chao Phraya River was the stage for a grand pageant of empire and diplomacy at the turn of the century.

The Chao Phraya River today with the former Customs House in the background.

The former headquarters of the Danish East Asiatic Company.

Hôtel Métropole, Hanoi

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Kennie Ting

The iconic and fabulous La Terrasse cafe restaurant, at today’s Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi.

Hôtel Métropole in Hanoi is one of the most beautiful hotels on this Grand Tour of Southeast Asia, and it is easily also one of my favourite hotels of all. Opened in 1901, it was the grande dame of the Hanoi social scene; and over a hundred years later, as the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, it remains the city’s most illustrious hotel establishment.

Hotel Metropole sits at left in a postcard from the early 1900s. The square it sits on was known as Square Chavassieux. Across from the Hotel stood (and stills stands) the Residence Superieure.

Stepping into the hotel is like stepping back in time – the atmosphere is chic, glamorous, chic and steeped in nostalgia. Wrapped up in a seasonal quilt in Winter and supping at one’s aperitif in the famous Bamboo Bar inside the hotel’s central courtyard, one feels transported to Paris during the Belle Epoque (1870s – 1910s). The hotel is lit up with a thousand christmas lights, and the lilting melody of French chansons waft through the air.

Another memorable and unique experience the hotel offers is a spin across town in one of its 1950s vintage Citroën cars. Sailing through the streets in this vehicle, with hundreds of ordinary Hanoi-ans peering curiously at one from their motorcycles, it is hard not to feel like a turn-of-the- century colonialist, ostentatiously descending onto the town for a sumptuous dinner and subsequent merry-making at the cabaret.

Que la vie est belle!

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore – Kinokuniya, Times and MPH – as well as at museum shops and the airport. As of mid-June, it will also be available at major bookstores across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, at Waterstones and Blackwells in London. It is further available on http://www.amazon.co.uk and http://www.bookdepository.com]

The Hotel Lobby today.

The Hotel’s chandelier.

Vintage Citroens at the hotel.

What to do in Phnom Penh in One Day – with Images

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Retro streetscapes in Phnom Penh’s Old Town.

Last Thursday, Singapore daily TODAY featured the book and myself in a fabulous two-ish page spread which included excerpts from a one-day itinerary recommended by yours truly. The entire full-day itinerary is featured on TODAY Online at this link: http://www.todayonline.com/lifestyle/travel/what-do-phnom-penh-one-day?page=1

What I’d thought I’d do here is to feature photos and visuals of the various landmarks and sights I recommended. So here goes.

——

Phnom Penh’s architecture and cityscape is breathtaking, particularly in and around the city centre. Hugging the banks of the Ton Le Sap River, Phnom Penh is also very walkable. A stroll is a good way to immerse oneself in the bustle of daily life and admire the most beautiful and intriguing buildings from the best vantage point possible — the street.

8am

Start the day off in Phnom Penh’s stylish and laidback Street 240 area, with its many colonial villas and shophouses (similar to those in Singapore and Penang) that have been turned into boutiques, cafes and restaurants today. Running between Norodom Boulevard and the Royal Palace, Street 240 is the equivalent of Singapore’s Holland Village or Tiong Bahru.

Traditional Chinese/Southeast Asian shophouse along Street 240, transformed into a cafe.

Have a healthy breakfast at ARTillery (www.artillerycafe.com) serving sandwiches, salads, smoothies and so on. The vegetarian banh mi is especially good.

9am

Saunter leisurely over to the Royal Palace of Phnom Penh. The palace here, unlike the one in Bangkok, is somewhat less overwhelmed with tourists, and the queue to get in will be shorter. Highlights here include the Silver Pagoda—so-called because its floors are literally laid out with panels of pure silver – and the wonderfully out-of-place Napoleon III Pavilion, gifted by the French Emperor Napoleon III to King Norodom in 1876, when Cambodia was a French Protectorate. The pavilion was originally constructed for Empress Eugenie to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Don’t miss te stunning Reamker Murals that adorn the cloister walls of the Silver Pagoda complex. The Reamker is the Cambodian version of the Hindu epic, The Ramayana, and shows a deep-seated Indian influence in Cambodian cultural tradition.

Scene from the Reamker Murals, on the Palace Cloister walls. This scene probably depicts Hanoman in Lanka.

11am

Head on over to the National Museum of Cambodia (www.cambodiamuseum.info) , situated adjacent to the Royal Palace. It was designed in an exuberant Khmer style by Georges Groslier, who also became the museum’s first director. The Museum has the most splendid collection of Khmer bronzes and stone statues outside of Angkor, and is a great prelude if you intend to visit Siem Reap.

The Khmer-style National Museum.

1pm

Walk down Street 178 to Sisowath Quay, on the waterfront. This used to be Phnom Penh’s old Quai de Commerce (or commercial harbour) and is the equivalent of Singapore’s Boat Quay. Today, it also resembles Boat Quay with its concentration of bars, restaurants and clubs.

View down Sisowath Quay, proclaiming Phnom Penh’s (utterly convincing) creds as a “Charming City”.

Have lunch at the famous F.C.C., or Foreign Correspondent’s Club (www.fcccambodia.com), located at the corner of Street 178 and Sisowath Quay. This has traditionally been a meeting place for journalists and adventurers, and it retains a delightfully colonial ambience and a stunning view of the Ton Le Sap River. Seat yourself on the third floor, as near to the view as you can, and try the delicious Fish Amok, a traditional Cambodian dish consisting of freshwater fish steamed in coconut milk and spices in a banana leaf. Accompany your meal with Angkor Beer – Cambodia’s national brew.

Delicious Fish Amok at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club.

2.30pm

After a leisurely lunch, the intrepid wandering begins. From the F.C.C., head north into Old Town Phnom Penh. The Old Town, approximately bounded by Norodom Boulevard and Sisowath Quay to the west and east, and Streets 106 to 178 the north and south, is the heart of commercial Phnom Penh.

Dive right in to find the greatest concentration of 1930s to 1960s style high-rise apartments that characterise Phnom Penh’s streetscape. The city oozes retro character, akin to what Hong Kong, or Singapore might have felt like in the ‘60s. The best part of the Old Town is the fact that it is a living and breathing creature as everyday Cambodians live, work and play here.

Streetscape in the Old Town

1930s – 1960s architecture, still used by everyday Phnom Penh-ers.

More streetscapes.

Retro contemporary.

4.30pm

Once you’re done, take Street 130 west towards another important architectural icon of the city – the Phsar Thmei, or Central Market, which appears like a surreal spaceship in the middle of Phnom Penh’s crowded streets. The Market was built in 1937 and designed in an Art Deco style. It offers a dizzying array of goods. Lug your shopping back by hailing one of ubiquitous trishaws and head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest.

The surreal spaceship-like Psar Thmei.

6.00pm

Dusk is the best time to take a boat cruise down the Ton Le Sap River because of the stunning views this affords of the sun setting over the Phnom Penh waterfront. The typical route takes you down to where the Ton Le Sap River meets the Mekong River, and then loops back. Along the way, you have a splendid view of the Royal Palace Complex, and – after sundown – a view of the hundreds of ordinary Phnom Penh-ers out dining and enjoying themselves in the many al fresco seafood restaurants and bars that line the waterfront.

Sunset on the Ton Le Sap.

Your hotel concierge should be able to make the arrangements for a boat cruise for you. If not, just head on down to the passenger quay (around Street 100 just off the French Colonial Quarter) and ask the many boat operators there if someone is willing to take you. Enjoy the breeze and the views the top deck.

7.30pm

After a refreshing cruise, head back into the French Colonial Quarter and in particular, Post Office Square, located along Street 13 between Streets 98 and 102. The marvellous wedding-cake that is the General Post Office Building stands here and is beautifully lit at night. It was erected in 1890 in a French renaissance style.

The General Post Office, in the French Colonial Quarter.

Located to the left of the General Post Office is the former Banque de L’Indochine (Bank of Indochina) building, which today, houses the excellent Van’s Restaurant (www.vans-restaurant.com). Don’t be fooled by the name. This is actually a French fine dining restaurant, serving arguably the best and most exquisite classic French cuisine in the city. The building and its interiors have been immaculately restored. The dining area has beautiful tiled floors, dark wood windows and doors and period furnishing. Stepping inside, one feels like one has slipped back in time, to France at the turn of the 19th century. It is a magical experience.

Escargots, at Van’s Restaurant.

9.30pm

Make the Raffles Hotel Le Royal your last stop for a nightcap. This is the city’s grande dame, opened in 1929 and designed by Ernest Hébrard, who was double-hatted as Phnom Penh’s urban planner. In its time, the hotel has played host to nobility, heads of state, writers and celebrities—the likes of Jackie Kennedy, Charlie Chaplin, Somerset Maugham.

Raffles Hotel Le Royal.

The highlight of the hotel is its famous Elephant Bar with its old-world atmosphere. Here, seated in a wicker chair beneath a lazily circulating fan, and with a gin and tonic in hand, is the best place to end a full-day’s itinerary of history, heritage and intrepid wandering.

The Elephant Bar

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore – Kinokuniya, Times and MPH – as well as at museum shops and the airport. As of mid-May, it will also be available at major bookstores across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, at Waterstones and Blackwells in London. It is further available on http://www.amazon.co.uk and http://www.bookdepository.com%5D

The Portuguese in Malacca – 500 years of history

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Kennie Ting

La Porta de Santiago (also known as A Famosa and built in 1511) is all that remains of the Portuguese walled city of Malacca.

Malacca was the first of South East Asia’s many colonies, claimed by the Portuguese explorer Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511, a staggering 500 years ago. The Portuguese stayed for less than a century, after which the city had the dubious honour of being colonised not just once, but twice, by the Dutch, and finally, the British, each of whom stayed for about a century and a half.

It is, as historians would put it, a palimpsest — a kind of blank canvas written on over and over again by successive writers, or civilisations, in this case. The thing about palimpsests is, that while the topmost layer is the most visible, it is rarely the layer that is of interest. In a similar way, what is most intriguing about Malacca is its Portuguese layer, which, though having been set in place before the Dutch and the British layers, refuses to fade away.

The most famous relic from Portuguese times is La Porta de Santiago, also known as the A Famosa gate. The gate, once part of a vast wall and fortress complex that encircled the city, stands like a silent, lonely sentinel at the foot of a small hill on which sits the other tangible relic of these first European colonisers – the ruined church of St Paul’s, once known as Nossa Senhora da Anunciada, or Our Lady of Grace.

La Porta de Santiago in the 1900s. It remains thanks to Sir Stamford Raffles, who halted the British troops’ destruction of the Portuguese Wall, during a brief interregnum between 1795 – 1818 when Britain ruled Malacca for the first time.

It was in and from this Church that Portugal’s most famous mediaeval export, the priest- explorer St Francis Xavier would preach his message of God to all of Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Malacca was Xavier’s professed favorite city, and when he died of a fever in Southern China in 1552, his body would be brought here to be interred for nine months, before being taken to Goa where it still rests today. The spot where he was supposedly (briefly) buried is marked out in the ruins, and sits beside a haunting quintet of ancient Portuguese gravestones – the only ones amidst dozens of Dutch and English slabs.

The city today isn’t over its Portuguese roots. In particular, the Portuguese never left Malacca. In fact, 500 years later, they – or at least their direct descendants – are still here. To find them, one simply has to take a short taxi ride three kilometres east of the city centre, to the Portuguese Settlement. There, by the shimmering Straits of Malacca, one can partake of excellent seafood and curries, cooked in a Portuguese-Creole style – also known as Kristang or Eurasian – that had emerged over the course of centuries through a fusion of European and Malay tastes.

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore – Kinokuniya, Times and MPH – as well as at museum shops and the airport. As of mid-May, it will also be available at major bookstores across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, at Waterstones and Blackwells in London, and on http://www.amazon.co.uk.]

State of St Francis Xavier in St Paul’s Church

The Pier at the Portuguese Settlement.

Old Saigon and the French in Indochina

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Kennie Ting

The Municipal Opera House, erected in 1897 and recalling the Paris Opera House.

Saigon is essentially a French city. When the French arrived in the 1860s, they wasted no time in making it the Paris of the East, replacing the existing Vietnamese citadel with some of the most impressive, most French, imperial monuments east of Suez.

As with their contemporaries, the British and the Dutch, the intent of French colonialism was trade, commerce and access to raw materials. Unlike them, however, the French also had one other important goal: the export of La Civilisation Française.

This focus on “Civilisation” manifests itself in the presence of marvellously ostentatious (and somewhat out-of-place) opera houses that exist in almost all of France’s colonies abroad – certainly in the major cities of L’Indochine Française: Saigon, Hanoi and Phnom Penh. These opera houses took centrestage in the cities’ urban landscape, and were also the centre of the colonial social scene.

In Saigon, the Municipal Opera House sits on the famed Rue Catinat (the Champs-Elysees of Saigon). Erected in a Beaux-Arts style in 1897, it still stands today, and as the two photos (above and below, THEN and NOW) demonstrate, very little has changed in terms of the view, even if the context has changed.

A closer look also reveals the country’s French past continuing to linger in the habits of the newly affluent Saigonese – or Ho Chi Minh-ites. As they smoke, converse and drink petites tasses de cafés et de thés in the cosy cafés that line many of the city’s sidewalks, they recall the joie de vivre et de conversation of their former rulers.

Similarly, the sight and smell of newly-baked banh mi, or baguettes, stuffed with a variety of hams, meats, cheeses and salads; the delectable confit de canard, boeuf bourguignon or even escargots that can be had in the excellent, French restaurants resuscitated in the city, is a reminder that the city’s French past refuses to go away.

All in all – Saigon is alive and well in today’s Ho Chi Minh City!

The Municipal Opera House today.

Locals enjoying crepes and coffee at a popular café, housed in a lovely French colonial villa.

Old Manila and the Spanish Empire

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Manila Cathedral and the Headquarters of the Knights of Columbus.

Old Manila was a mediaeval walled city, built by Spanish colonialists in the late 1500s. Up until the early 1900s, it was a beautiful place of baroque cathedrals and ornate villas, reminiscent of towns in New Spain (today’s Mexico), from which it was ruled. It was known by sailors who stopped on her shores, as the “Pearl of the Orient.”

Unfortunately, much of Old Manila – called Intramuros (or “inside the walls”) today – was ruined in the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, the old city was a casualty of the Battle of Manila – a key battle on the Pacific front between the United States of America and Imperial Japan.

Today, much of Intramuros still lies in ruins, and around these ruins sit luxury residences alongside shanty-towns. But look hard (and look up) and you will find windows into the past – when you can just about imagine how it was like 400 years ago when the Spanish brought EMPIRE, RELIGION and TRADE to these shores.

Vintage view of a calesa (horse carriage) exiting the Parian Gate, Walled City of Manila.

Vintage view of a calesa (horse carriage) exiting the Puerte del Parian (Parian Gate), Walled City of Manila.

Fort Santiago is the entrance to the Walled City of Manila.

Old Batavia and the Dutch Empire

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Stained Glass panel at the former De Javasche Bank (1828) in Kota Toea. Today, it houses the Museum Bank Indonesia.

At the recent book launch on 15 April 2015 at the Singapore Art Museum, I had the chance to highlight some of my favourite images from this Grand Tour project and why I thought they were special.

Here’s one of the images – a stained glass window in the former De Javasche Bank (Bank of Java) in Kota Toea – the old town of Jakarta, formerly known as Batavia.

The reason why this stained glass window is special is because it spoke eloquently of the guiding philosophy behind Dutch colonialism in Indonesia.

Note the image of the Roman God Mercury at the top of the window – this is symbolic for two reasons: the fact that it depicts a pagan god shows how the Dutch considered their new colony a kind of utopia – a new world. At the same time, the fact that they depict a Roman God – and they were very generous with depictions of Roman gods and goddesses elsewhere in the bank and the city – suggests perhaps that they were themselves inheritors of Romans.

Or, to put it simply – they were the New Romans, out here in the Far East, creating a new Roman Empire.

Stained glass, as we all know, is also a religious form of art. In this case, the fact that stained glass was being used to depict motifs of Empire and Trade – the bottom half of the window presents the coats of arms of Batavia, Soerabaja and Semarang, the three largest port cities of the Dutch East Indies – suggests that TRADE was the new religion. OR, if one were to be a little more cynical, it could also be the Dutch solipsistically referring to themselves as the new GODS, creating a new world out here.

Finally, the third reason why this image spoke so movingly to me was because it suggested the existence of a whole different civilisation than ours, that has completely disappeared. It wasn’t so long ago that the Indische, or Dutch Europeans were living here – but today traces of them have been removed so systematically from the city that what remains feel – to me, at least – like relics from a lost civilisation.

Chancing upon this image was, in a sense, a kind of urban archaeology.

The Romance Of The Grand Tour

100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia

Author Archives: Kennie Ting